Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
Interview with Jay Gregory
June 15, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 3
Clint Alley: What, what were the conditions on the ship like? I mean, was it, was it like bunks or, I know today it looks like they have sometimes dormitories on board.
Jay Gregory: Yeah, well the destroyer, this one was built in, she was launched in June 14, 1944. There weren’t any dormitories. Let’s see here. We had bunks that were made up of, ah, aluminum pipe probably about an inch in diameter, you know, in a rectangle, an appropriate length and width, you know, probably about twenty, twenty-two inches wide maybe and somewhere around six feet long and it had a piece of canvas lashed inside of that pipe.
CA: Okay.
JG: And then had a mattress on top of that piece of canvas and they hung or hinged so that the, the inboard side was fastened with bolts to a bulkhead or partition or, or a stanchion of pipe—
CA: Um-hm.
JG: ―and the other side hung on chains so that they could be folded up in the daytime. The biggest problem we had, you know, our, our chow was completely dependent upon the skill level of the relative cook, but we had, you know, plenty to eat and stuff. The big challenge, the only challenge we had, I mean, it wasn’t anything like, you know, stories I’m sure you’ve heard if you’ve talked to mud marines and, and people that really went in there and got ugly but, water is the big challenge particularly on destroyers of that vintage. You have to make water from seawater. We had four big boilers depending on how many boilers you had on the line and which means how fast you were going, so when we were chasing an aircraft carrier we had three or four boilers on the line all the time. With four boilers on the line, the boilers used ten thousand gallon of distilled water, which is cleaner than what you have to drink every day. Now boilers come first; crew comes second. So, we’d frequently go for weeks where the only time you got anything to drink was during mealtime; the rest of the time all the water fountains and stuff were shut off and we’d go for twenty-five, thirty, or thirty-five days without a shower ah, because, or laundry by the way, so there, there just, you know, ah, don’t, don’t cringe too bad, so, you know, this is essentially what I, you know, wore [Mr. Gregory indicates his t-shirt and jeans] except I had bell-bottom trousers and, and see you’d have like seventeen or eighteen sets of working uniforms and, and twenty, twenty-four sets of white uniforms, so you could go that long without coming to the laundry and you know, you quickly learned to have rubbing alcohol and baby powder and other things to try, ah, you know.
CA: Oh, goodness.
JG: But that was, you know, the really only, the discomfort, if you will, was always water, always water, water. I was on three different destroyers and it was always water.
CA: Well, did you ever have a problem at anytime with, like, illness or maybe sea sickness or anything like that?
JG: I never got seasick. Thank God. Knew people that did and it was brutal. I never had any illness, I mean, nothing serious, you know. Fatigue sometimes was an issue, but—.
CA: We talked to one man, I think he was a World War II veteran and he said that a big problem with the bunks they had―
JG: Yeah.
CA: —they were on chains—
JG: Right.
CA: —and it, the athlete’s foot and jungle rot—
JG: Yeah.
CA: —were spread because they, like, scratched their toes on the chains and things.
JG: Yeah.
CA: And so I guess they, they figured that out by—
JG: Yeah. Yeah. We had figured that out. Yeah. Yeah. We had figured that out. It, you’d bleach the decks and make sure everybody stays, takes care of themselves.
CA: Yeah. Okay, well, and then, so you, ah, you were done with your duties off the coast there by ’71 you said.
JG: Yep.
CA: Okay, did you go back to Hawaii after that?
JG: Yep, I went back to Hawaii and on the way back to Hawaii I reenlisted and got another school for that.
CA: Hm.
JG: Where—“B” school it’s called and just went into more of the same, but advanced electronics, calculus, trig, Boolean algebra, digital logic, you know, and really dug into the whole electronics thing. That was about a thirty-some week school, I think, or maybe it was twenty-four, can’t remember. So then, that was back up at Great lakes and then after that I went to the DD836, the George K. McKenzie and she was out at San Diego. CA: Okay. So that would have been about ’72 or ’73?
JG: Yeah, it would have been late in, it’d been early in ’72, I think. Yeah, we deployed again in November, ’71 so I got, and I got to the McKenzie just a week or two before she deployed so I would have gotten there early November, ’71.
CA: Okay.
JG: Yeah.
CA: So you didn’t spend a whole lot of time in San Diego then, I guess.
JG: No. I was just, in that time I was just in San Diego passing through.
CA: Okay. Yeah. Well, your time back in the states—
JG: Yeah—
CA: —did you get a, like a firsthand look at maybe the anti-war movement or anything like that? We’ve heard a lot of veterans tell stories about—
JG: Yeah, yeah we did. I was in Great Lakes then, in '70 and there, and there was something going on then, in, in the Chicago area. They, they had the Yippies. Remember those guys?
CA: Yeah.
JG: Yeah. And, ah, the Navy’s kind of weird, you know, it, well the Navy does have an infantry. They call them the Marines. But other than that, in the Navy they don’t. You know, everybody else has got a job, but if you’re an ordinance guy, if you’re in part of the ordinance then that entitles you to be the infantry, if there is such a thing. So, you know, as an ordinance guy, ordinance non-commissioned officer, I was always on the boarding search and salvage team, you know, I was always on everything like that and so when I was back at Great Lakes that time I had the privilege of being on the riot squad.
CA: Oh, wow. That’s amazing.
JG: And, so at some point there when I was there then the Yippies tried to take over the— they, they announced that they were gonna to take over the Naval base.
CA: Oh, really?
JG: But, we disabused them of that belief. And they decided it wasn’t a good idea. And, and, of course, you saw the news and stuff and all the stuff that was going on and I was pretty much a professional; I didn’t have much use for those folks.
CA: Yeah. Yeah.
RH: How did it affect morale, in general? JG: Well, that’s an interesting question. Not that much; not that much, I don’t, I don’t remember anything, you know. You know, and by this time, by the time I went to the McKenzie, you know, I was the equivalent of a Army sergeant, an E-5, and so, you know, I had a number of folks on the team and when we were shooting the guns, that takes thirty-five or forty people. Morale’s the leader’s responsibility and my folks may have had, you know, I had my, our term from the day was ‘long –haired weirdoes’, the guys that always hated to get a haircut and were always causing a problem about that and, you know, didn’t want to stay folded and spit-shined, but when it came time to do our job, they were all more vested in, in doing a good job and, and looking good and the benefits that come from doing a good job than politics.
CA: Um-hm, yeah.
JG: Didn’t affect me, didn’t affect anything.
CA: Yeah.
JG: They might have cried to their mom; I don’t know. But it didn’t affect the way we worked.
CA: Yeah.
JG: Yeah.
CA: Yeah.

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Transcriptions

Florence-Lauderdale Public Library
Interview with Jay Gregory
June 15, 2011
Florence, Alabama
Conducted by Clint Alley and Rhonda Haygood
Clip 3
Clint Alley: What, what were the conditions on the ship like? I mean, was it, was it like bunks or, I know today it looks like they have sometimes dormitories on board.
Jay Gregory: Yeah, well the destroyer, this one was built in, she was launched in June 14, 1944. There weren’t any dormitories. Let’s see here. We had bunks that were made up of, ah, aluminum pipe probably about an inch in diameter, you know, in a rectangle, an appropriate length and width, you know, probably about twenty, twenty-two inches wide maybe and somewhere around six feet long and it had a piece of canvas lashed inside of that pipe.
CA: Okay.
JG: And then had a mattress on top of that piece of canvas and they hung or hinged so that the, the inboard side was fastened with bolts to a bulkhead or partition or, or a stanchion of pipe—
CA: Um-hm.
JG: ―and the other side hung on chains so that they could be folded up in the daytime. The biggest problem we had, you know, our, our chow was completely dependent upon the skill level of the relative cook, but we had, you know, plenty to eat and stuff. The big challenge, the only challenge we had, I mean, it wasn’t anything like, you know, stories I’m sure you’ve heard if you’ve talked to mud marines and, and people that really went in there and got ugly but, water is the big challenge particularly on destroyers of that vintage. You have to make water from seawater. We had four big boilers depending on how many boilers you had on the line and which means how fast you were going, so when we were chasing an aircraft carrier we had three or four boilers on the line all the time. With four boilers on the line, the boilers used ten thousand gallon of distilled water, which is cleaner than what you have to drink every day. Now boilers come first; crew comes second. So, we’d frequently go for weeks where the only time you got anything to drink was during mealtime; the rest of the time all the water fountains and stuff were shut off and we’d go for twenty-five, thirty, or thirty-five days without a shower ah, because, or laundry by the way, so there, there just, you know, ah, don’t, don’t cringe too bad, so, you know, this is essentially what I, you know, wore [Mr. Gregory indicates his t-shirt and jeans] except I had bell-bottom trousers and, and see you’d have like seventeen or eighteen sets of working uniforms and, and twenty, twenty-four sets of white uniforms, so you could go that long without coming to the laundry and you know, you quickly learned to have rubbing alcohol and baby powder and other things to try, ah, you know.
CA: Oh, goodness.
JG: But that was, you know, the really only, the discomfort, if you will, was always water, always water, water. I was on three different destroyers and it was always water.
CA: Well, did you ever have a problem at anytime with, like, illness or maybe sea sickness or anything like that?
JG: I never got seasick. Thank God. Knew people that did and it was brutal. I never had any illness, I mean, nothing serious, you know. Fatigue sometimes was an issue, but—.
CA: We talked to one man, I think he was a World War II veteran and he said that a big problem with the bunks they had―
JG: Yeah.
CA: —they were on chains—
JG: Right.
CA: —and it, the athlete’s foot and jungle rot—
JG: Yeah.
CA: —were spread because they, like, scratched their toes on the chains and things.
JG: Yeah.
CA: And so I guess they, they figured that out by—
JG: Yeah. Yeah. We had figured that out. Yeah. Yeah. We had figured that out. It, you’d bleach the decks and make sure everybody stays, takes care of themselves.
CA: Yeah. Okay, well, and then, so you, ah, you were done with your duties off the coast there by ’71 you said.
JG: Yep.
CA: Okay, did you go back to Hawaii after that?
JG: Yep, I went back to Hawaii and on the way back to Hawaii I reenlisted and got another school for that.
CA: Hm.
JG: Where—“B” school it’s called and just went into more of the same, but advanced electronics, calculus, trig, Boolean algebra, digital logic, you know, and really dug into the whole electronics thing. That was about a thirty-some week school, I think, or maybe it was twenty-four, can’t remember. So then, that was back up at Great lakes and then after that I went to the DD836, the George K. McKenzie and she was out at San Diego. CA: Okay. So that would have been about ’72 or ’73?
JG: Yeah, it would have been late in, it’d been early in ’72, I think. Yeah, we deployed again in November, ’71 so I got, and I got to the McKenzie just a week or two before she deployed so I would have gotten there early November, ’71.
CA: Okay.
JG: Yeah.
CA: So you didn’t spend a whole lot of time in San Diego then, I guess.
JG: No. I was just, in that time I was just in San Diego passing through.
CA: Okay. Yeah. Well, your time back in the states—
JG: Yeah—
CA: —did you get a, like a firsthand look at maybe the anti-war movement or anything like that? We’ve heard a lot of veterans tell stories about—
JG: Yeah, yeah we did. I was in Great Lakes then, in '70 and there, and there was something going on then, in, in the Chicago area. They, they had the Yippies. Remember those guys?
CA: Yeah.
JG: Yeah. And, ah, the Navy’s kind of weird, you know, it, well the Navy does have an infantry. They call them the Marines. But other than that, in the Navy they don’t. You know, everybody else has got a job, but if you’re an ordinance guy, if you’re in part of the ordinance then that entitles you to be the infantry, if there is such a thing. So, you know, as an ordinance guy, ordinance non-commissioned officer, I was always on the boarding search and salvage team, you know, I was always on everything like that and so when I was back at Great Lakes that time I had the privilege of being on the riot squad.
CA: Oh, wow. That’s amazing.
JG: And, so at some point there when I was there then the Yippies tried to take over the— they, they announced that they were gonna to take over the Naval base.
CA: Oh, really?
JG: But, we disabused them of that belief. And they decided it wasn’t a good idea. And, and, of course, you saw the news and stuff and all the stuff that was going on and I was pretty much a professional; I didn’t have much use for those folks.
CA: Yeah. Yeah.
RH: How did it affect morale, in general? JG: Well, that’s an interesting question. Not that much; not that much, I don’t, I don’t remember anything, you know. You know, and by this time, by the time I went to the McKenzie, you know, I was the equivalent of a Army sergeant, an E-5, and so, you know, I had a number of folks on the team and when we were shooting the guns, that takes thirty-five or forty people. Morale’s the leader’s responsibility and my folks may have had, you know, I had my, our term from the day was ‘long –haired weirdoes’, the guys that always hated to get a haircut and were always causing a problem about that and, you know, didn’t want to stay folded and spit-shined, but when it came time to do our job, they were all more vested in, in doing a good job and, and looking good and the benefits that come from doing a good job than politics.
CA: Um-hm, yeah.
JG: Didn’t affect me, didn’t affect anything.
CA: Yeah.
JG: They might have cried to their mom; I don’t know. But it didn’t affect the way we worked.
CA: Yeah.
JG: Yeah.
CA: Yeah.